Dave Weigel:
My friend Mike Elk has a story so head-spinning and pathetic that it must be enjoyed in one long read. D.C. labor activists suspected that plainclothes cops were infiltrating protests. Jeffrey Light and Sean Canavan, lawyers with United Students Against Sweatshops, wondered about the identity of a woman who kept showing up at protests but no other organizing meetings. They eventually figured out that the woman was a cop, Nicole Rizzi.
They figured this out because she wrote about her work, online….
Hey, it’s that new-fangled ‘community policing’! Because now that all street crime in DC has been eliminated, it’s time to crack down on those DFHs with their ‘flyers’ and ‘petitions’.From Mike Elk’s In These Times article:
… The story of how Rizzi was uncovered reads like a mix of “Gossip Girl” and “The Wire.” Activists pieced her identity together from her obsessive posting to social media sites, including Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook, WordPress and Yfrog.
Lacy MacAuley, an activist and media manager for the Institute for Policy Studies, has suspected for the past several years that a protester named “Missy” was an undercover cop. “Missy” seemed to be at every protest, but no one knew her. However, MacAuley had no way of proving her suspicions…
A law enacted by the D.C. Council in 2004 imposes strict guidelines on police when they investigate or attempt to infiltrate First Amendment-protected groups. The Police Investigations Concerning First Amendment Activities Act of 2004 specifies that the MPD departments can only investigate free speech activities if they can prove sufficient cause that protestors are engaged in crime and they have the authorization of the Executive Director of the DC MPD Intelligence Fusion Divisions (or an appropriate supervisor of similar rank). To send in undercover officers, they have to go through the same authorization process again.
But USAS attorneys Sean Canavan and Jeffrey Light say the MPD rarely follows this law…
Light, who filed the case on behalf of USAS, says that undercover surveillance sows suspicion among activists and hinders collective action.
“If they are putting an undercover [cop] there, then they are putting undercover [police] everywhere. That is a big problem for a lot of these groups,” says Light. “You are trying to get people to come out and protest knowing that there is a undercover cop there—it’s a huge problem.”
Shishido Strain says his run-ins with Rizzi have already made him wary of strangers who want to get involved in fights for workers’ rights….
Which is (has always been) the point to these half-arsed Keystone Kops “infiltrations”: Not so much gathering information — although they’ll hoover up any tidbits they might be able to use ‘for later’ — as setting up a climate of fear and suspicion where anyone might be a narc or a provocateur.
LanceThruster
Aren’t there any real crimes to investigate?
JustRuss
You’d think Fox and Tea Partiers would be outraged by this flagrant waste of tax dollars to harass Americans who are merely exercising their rights as guaranteed in the Constitution. My prediction: crickets.
Johnny Coelacanth
Nicole “Narc Pig” Rizzo’s Twitter and Tumblr accounts have been taken down. Her FB page was up as of yesterday, but I haven’t bothered to look at it today. Let’s hope this keeps her from ever working plainclothes again.
? Martin
I wonder if this is what finally kills Rush:
Jaybird
The Fox and Tea Partiers probably won’t say anything but the glibertarians will probably crow “I told you so!” and then argue for the budget to be cut because they just live for any reason to get unionized public servants fired.
Yatsuno
@? Martin: FSM doth not loveth me enough.
Spaghetti Lee
You could probably get a pretty good romantic comedy out of that.
Spaghetti Lee
@LanceThruster:
Nope, not since DC got its murder, burglary, and assault rates down to zero. Cops there are just so bored.
piratedan
see no reason to get mad at Rizzo (yes, she was most likely an idiot for documenting her work like 85% of the people who use Facebook), get mad at the douchebag that authorized tasking her out to monitor the DFH brigade while there was actual crime to be fought. Unless she’s part of a self appointed task force, she’s not likely setting her own agenda (doesn’t mean that she doesn’t agree with it, but Barretta this ain’t)
Spaghetti Lee
Maybe they should get undercover cops who blabber about their secret identity on facebook on the trail of all the crooks who post pictures of their stolen goods on facebook. Sounds like they were made for each other.
Actually, I wonder…not that I’m a narc or anything (as far as you all know, anyway) but I gotta figure it’s a tougher job than it used to be: people will be more suspicious of you if you’re not on social media, so you kind of have to be there, but that provides so many more opportunities for things to slip out. They’ve got it tough, narcs do.
Linkmeister
Not new, of course. See COINTELPRO for similar activities by the FBI during the Sixties.
Ruckus
And people want me to believe that law enforcement doesn’t think that everyone but them are criminals until law enforcement proves otherwise, which they don’t seem to be trying to do.
Mmmmm….
Billy Dilly
There was once an joke about the Communist Party USA, half of the made up of FBI informants and the other half made up of FBI undercover
Such as living in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
LanceThruster
@Spaghetti Lee:
Maybe they can help bring this model of zero-crime tolerance to other departments nationwide. Nothing succeeds like success.
kc
Why the fuck are the DC cops doing this?
Put that woman’s pic everywhere, so they’ll have to put a uniform on her ass and put her on parking meter patrol.
kindness
Compare the realities. The police, NSA, FBI etc are watching everything we do. Teahaddists not only don’t care they support the authorities.
Teahaddists think the IRS, the Democratic Party, Obama are watching their every move. Progressives just find this reinforces their notion that those people are crazy.
So, not only do liberals have to deal with actual authorities, but they also have to deal with the loons.
Go figure.
lamh36
Matt Damon: Obama ‘broke up with me’
eemom
I grew up in the Bronx too. Never knew it had a British Quarter.
Roger Moore
@LanceThruster:
Resisting our Galtian Overlords is the worst crime of all.
ranchandsyrup
my co-blawger’s latest in her “just the tip” series on bad lighting: http://ranchandsyrup.com/2013/08/08/dont-ever-stumble-into-bad-lighting/
Roger Moore
@Billy Dilly:
You’ll occasionally hear about this kind of thing happening with drug busts, where there’s one set of undercover cops trying to go up the chain to get to big time smugglers and another one trying to go down the chain to get distributors, and they wind up trying to arrest each other. And isn’t there a movie just coming out with Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg where they’re both undercover cops?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Why didn’t they humiliate her in public
“Welcome Officer Rizze badge number xxx to the protest, lovely Facebook page you’ve blogged about your undercover work on So are you going to start a riot today as part of your undercover work to stop freedom of assembly?”
Billy Dilly
Hey if the Gilberton,PA police chief is not reinstated, he could always get a job with the DeKalb County Sheriffs Or maybe he can hire them to join his militia.
Billy Dilly
@Roger Moore: There was a great scene in the movie Traffic where the DEA and local law enforcement get into jurisdiction squabble in middle of a gunfight with the cartel.
gene108
@? Martin:
What I think would be better is to demand the Republican Presidential nominee give Rush the Presidential Medal of Freedom because of his work to promote conservatism.
Maybe in a townhall type debate have someone come out and say this or at some campaign stops.
Rush Limbaugh has done as much or more to promote conservatism as anyone else in this country. He deserves recognition by a Republican President for this.
Redshirt
@lamh36: Jason Bourne, Firebagger.
DFH no.6
@Ruckus:Known enough law enforcement people over the past 40+ years or so that (along with innumerable stories like this one) I have concluded that the “you’re pretty much all guilty, we just haven’t caught you yet” suspicious mindset is quite common among the constabulary.
Fucking narcs.
The asinine War on (some people who use some) Drugs and this stupid “infiltrate the hippies” horseshit are just wrong and indefensible.
The IRS closely scrutinizing Tea Party tax-exempt applications gets full-throated “scandal!” treatment (because these groups are not political organizations devoted to electioneering, on no, of course not – the “party” in their groups’ titles means they’re out to have a good time, I suppose).
But this “infiltrate the hippies in defiance of the law”? I guarantee most Americans have no idea.
And now let’s wait for the police-apologists to show up and tell us what a hard job it is being a cop and they’re out their every day putting their asses on the line protecting and serving all us civilians and no they don’t suspect we’re all criminals, etc..
Fucking narcs.
stinger
@ranchandsyrup: Great tip, thanks!
The Moar You Know
So little effort, so much payoff.
Gotta admire the results. Wish our side was half as smart.
ranchandsyrup
@stinger: My wife’s smarter than me, orders of magnitude more attractive, a better writer and has good ideas to share. thx for reading.
Baud
@lamh36:
So I guess Obama is no longer fucking Matt Damon
DFH no.6
@Redshirt: Yeah, well most of us here are Obots (just ask Ted & Helen — I’m kidding, don’t) so it all evens out.
I do like Damon in his movies (planning on checking out Elysium this weekend).
Then again, I (mostly) like Willis and McConaughey and Eastwood, too, so politics doesn’t really factor in my appreciation (or not) of actors or their films.
And, I say again, fucking narcs.
Omnes Omnibus
@DFH no.6: My grandfather’s theory about cops was that a shitload of them are bullies who look on getting a badge as an excuse to push people around. I’ve seen little in my life to discredit that theory.
Spaghetti Lee
@DFH no.6:
I think anyone who limits themselves to entertainment made only by people they agree with politically is a dope. An Eastwood or Bruce Willis money turning a profit isn’t the thing that keeps the Republican party going-elected Republicans do. Get angry at them.
(that said-McConaughey’s a Republican? Never knew that.)
eemom
@Omnes Omnibus:
What’s even worse nowadays is that most cops are young enough to be my grandkids.
Chris
@Spaghetti Lee:
Me neither.
The liberal media/liberal Hollywood myth keeps a lot of us assuming that actors are liberal until proven otherwise. Once you get down to it, though, conservatives are very well represented among them (hence “myth”).
Chris
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’ve never been in the military, but I’d be curious to know whether and/or how much this applies to soldiers as well.
celticdragonchick
@Chris:
I doubt it. Most people I ever knew in the Army were dedicated to doing as little as necessary to get by…including me.
The Moar You Know
@Chris: I’m a civilian who works with/for the military. In my experience, this is rarely the case with enlisted folks and very often the case with officers.
BobS
The dumb-fuck has to be the worst undercover cop ever. Too bad they didn’t have her try to infiltrate the Mafia.
Older
Many years ago, when I first signed on with the Postal Service, I went down to the designated clothing story to purchase my uniform items. At the same time, there was another postal recruit there, who when the salesperson asked him what he wanted to say, blurted out “A Police Uniform!!” which he then quickly corrected to “a mail carrier’s uniform”. I figured he was just anxious to get into some kind of uniform and push people around, and was very glad that he would be working out of a different branch office than I would.
The urge to push people around seems to be very wide-spread.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chris: I always thought it applied to MPs, but that’s about it.
Argive
My dad went clean for Gene back in ’67-’68. There was an undercover FBI agent working in his field office. Everyone knew who the undercover was because he was the only dude there with a buzz cut, but no one said anything. Anyway, when it became clear that Humphrey was gonna get the nomination, the FBI agent admitted he was undercover to my dad and a few other people. He told them “You know, when I started working here, I thought you were all a bunch of communists. But after working with all of you, I realize now that you really care about this country!”
Chris
@Argive:
Liberal presidential campaigns = enemies of the state, not only in Fox News electioneering slogans (or whatever the equivalent was back then), but in FBI official policy.
Land of the free, etc.
cleek
@? Martin:
Obama’s such a Republican
Mike G
@JustRuss:
Teatards don’t have principles, they have tactics. Which is why they’re all for cops spending a crapload of money to spy on dirty fucking hippies, but outraged if it were done to them. Just like the Patriot Act was Murkafreedombaldeagles-awesome-so-shutup-and-obey when CheneyBush was ramming it through, but evil incarnate now that MarxistNazi Obama is using it.
mclaren
Paging Omnes Omnibus and Mnemosyne and Eemom and Anti-liberal Black Lady…your brown bag full of Karl Rove cash is waiting at the checkout counter along with your latest list of government-approved talking points for disrupting liberal websites by “rat-fucking” the commentators who utter dangerous truths…
TALKING POINT #1:
USE WORDS LIKE “CRAZY” AND “NUTS” AND “OFF HIS/HER MEDS” TO DESCRIBE ANYONE WHO SUGGESTS THAT OBAMA IS CONTINUING THE BUSH NATIONAL SECURITY POLICIES
TALKING POINT #2:
EMPLOY THE CLASSIC ANN COULTER JIU JITSU TECHNIQUE AGAINST LIBERALS WHO POINT OUT THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION AND DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS HAVE BETRAYED THEIR CAMPAIGN PROMISES — ACCUSE SUCH LIBERALS OF BEING “IN THE PAY OF GIANT CORPORATIONS” AND “WHORING THEMSELVES OUT TO BIG BUSINESS”
TALKING POINT #3:
SUGGEST THAT ANYONE WHO CORRECTLY CONCLUDES AMERICA IS BEING TURNED INTO A POLICE STATE BY A BIPARTISAN CONSENSUS OF AUTHORITARIAN DEMOCRATS WORKING WITH AUTHORITARIAN REPUBLICANS IS “PEDDLING A CONSPIRACY THEORY” AND “RAVING ABOUT THE ZAPRUDER FILM AND BLACK HELICOPTERS.”
mclaren
@DFH no.6:
Especially when “hippies” now means “people who advocate a living wage and enforcement of existing workplace safety laws.”
ian
@? Martin:
Well, Richard Lugar is on there. Despite the fact that he voted (time and time again) for budgets which were poison to the constituents he represented, he also was a ‘moderate’ republican. Being willing to bear that title does deserve some recognition.